The Shenandoah County School Board made national news earlier this year when it voted to restore the names of Confederate generals to two schools. Now, they're being sued by the NAACP. Two of our reporters teamed up to delve deeper into this controversy. Here's WMRA's Bridget Manley with the first of a four-part series.
Seventeen-year-old student Briana Brown is a rising senior attending Massanutten Regional Governor's School in Shenandoah County. She runs cross-country, participates in school musicals, and is vice president of the National Honor Society. Heather Brown is Briana’s mother.
HEATHER BROWN: She’s very creative, very into doing the right thing, and sticking up for the things she believes in.
Following a 5-1 vote in the early hours of May 10, the Shenandoah County School Board voted to revert two school names—Mountain View High School and Honey Run Elementary School—officially changing them back to Stonewall Jackson High School and Ashby-Lee Elementary School after the election of three new board members in January who ran for office to restore the former names.
The name change made national headlines – and it’s believed to be the first in the nation to revert back following the removal of hundreds of names and symbols in the wake of the death of George Floyd in 2020.
BROWN: Briana was very upset by it. She was hurt by it; she feels like it’s a total step backward when it seemed like we were moving forward. And I think the country as a whole, I think she is also very frightened. She is very scared by what is happening and the division that has taken place.
So Briana, along with four other students in Shenandoah County and the Virginia chapter of the NAACP, decided to sue the Shenandoah County School Board to reinstate the non-Confederate names.
The lawsuit alleges that the school board violated the students' First Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment and statutory rights under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Education Opportunities Act.
The lawsuit relies on a greater understanding of the dark history following the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education and the “Massive Resistance” programs embarked upon by the governing bodies of Virginia’s educational systems.
MARJA PLATER: These gentlemen have a long history of hate, of racialized discrimination that they chose to uphold during their time in this country, in their history. And their history is well-known, right?
Marja Plater is senior counsel and Youth Justice Council at the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs in Washington, D.C., and one of the plaintiffs' lawyers.
PLATER: The fact that this school board wishes to return or honor that sentiment in that way is really honoring a legacy of discrimination and hate and white supremacy. We think that it is illegal. It violates a number of laws.
Lawyers for the students contend that that particular history should be considered when looking at the decisions by the present-day board, saying, [quote] “The confederate school names and mascots represent a particular ideological view that Black people are inferior…and that endorses current day white supremacist movements.”
According to the lawsuit, by reinstating the names and requiring the students who participate in school activities to wear uniforms and other school apparel and participate as a “Stonewall Jackson General,” the school board is compelling the students to express a view with which they disagree and violating their First Amendment rights.
The plaintiffs maintain that students unwilling to wear a uniform or apparel with the Stonewall Jackson Generals insignia would be excluded from full participation in certain extracurricular activities.
On July 17, lawyers for the school board filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, responding to each of the plaintiffs' allegations.
In their response, lawyers for the school board say that the students make unsupported claims that the school board requires them to participate in school activities and do not allege that they have experienced punishment or sanctions for objecting to school names and mascots.
According to the lawsuit, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits states and state actors from discriminating based on race or national origin and “imparts a duty on school boards to eliminate racial discrimination root and branch so as to make their services equally available to all.”
The plaintiffs argue that in the pattern of actions and statements surrounding the school board's vote to restore the names in 2024, the “motivating purpose for the school board’s decision was to discriminate against Black students and their families.”
Lawyers for the school board fired back in their response, calling the allegations “vague, speculative and… do not possibly support the theory that Black students were disproportionately impacted by the reinstatement of the school names” or that “there was a discriminatory intent or animus behind the reinstatement.”
Further, lawyers for the school board argue that the school board members ran on a campaign of reinstating the names and that the democratic process of the voters electing representatives to carry out their will was successful.
When reached for comment, Shenandoah County School Board Chair Dennis Barlow deferred questions regarding the lawsuit to Guynn Waddell, the law firm hired to represent the school board. Guynn Waddell did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
But what is the history behind how these schools were first named? WMRA's Randi B. Hagi picks up that part of the story in our next installment.
Editor's note, August 6, 2024: a previous version of this story incorrectly spelled Briana Brown's name and misattributed two photos. It has been corrected.
